Runt by Nora Raleigh Baskin Read Free Book Online Page B

wedding. I didn’t know how many kids would show up, but I wanted a good seat. I wanted Miss Robinson to see I was there, that I made the effort so that she could like me again. I had made a special card for her. My mother said I should make it for both the bride and the groom, but I wanted it to be just for Miss Robinson, so I made two.
    I wrote a haiku.
    I grabbed Patty-Lou by the collar and yanked her. “Now pee,” I ordered. She promptly sat down, making her body as small as possible and looked up at me. If dogs could cry her eyes would be welling up with tears.
    â€œNo, no sad-and-puppy face.”
    Laurie’s mother was coming by to pick me up in twenty-five minutes. I pretended not to see Patty-Lou. “Get outside now. I don’t have much time.”
    I know you are not supposed to talk to dogs like that, giving out too much information that they can’t understand. It just confuses them. All they hear is noise and they freeze up.
    Why didn’t I lay out my outfit last night? As if I kept believing my mom and me were going to go shopping, all the way up until yesterday? And then up until dinner? And then all the way until I went to bed and got up this morning, five minutes ago. So I put on my last year’s party dress. The one I wore to the spring concert and Aunt Joan’s funeral. It’s fine.
    But now I needed to let out seven dogs and feed them all before I left.
    I was late. Everything needed to go perfectly. Everyone needed to understand they had to hurry, eat, and do their business. But it wasn’t going to be Patty-Lou, was it? She was just going to make me late and make me look stupid, so I kicked her—hard—in the underbelly of her soft unprepared body.
    The sound that came out of her mouth was awful, a high pitched yelp escaped in a whoof of air. Patty-Lou followed her front legs, low to the ground, and moved slowly outside, her tail tucked and her head down. She took a few steps out onto the lawn.
    â€œOh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no.” I ran out into the soggy grass and dropped to my knees. She didn’t smell so good, but I wrapped my arms around her little waist anyway. “I am so sorry. I am so so sorry,” I said to Patty-Lou.
    I was getting grass stains on my dress, on my white tights, but I didn’t care.
    Our lawn was an embarrassment. Torn up from digging, yellow from pee, dried out. In fact, grass only grew in small patches here and there like a blotchy rash. Patty-Lou slowed down, turning her head as if she didn’t want anyone to watch her do her business. Dogs are like that. They like a little privacy even though they’d sit right in front of you and lick their private parts all day if you’d let them. But they like to pee and poo in private.
    So I looked away, back toward the house, as soon as I was sure she was squatting down and going. And just like that it started to rain. It was just little drops, hitting the concrete in dark circles. I looked up at the sky, which,when you think about it, is kind of a funny thing to do. It was still sunny outside but the rain pattered loudly. The weatherman on TV was predicting a hurricane. They’d already given it a name. A girl’s name.
    It used to be that hurricanes were given only girls’ names and then someone complained, probably a girl, saying that it gave girls a bad reputation. And now they alternate with boy’s names, to try to look fair. And the news was telling everyone to fill their bathtubs with water. Why? And to stock up on canned food and flashlights. People who lived near the shore were being advised to leave their homes.
    But Miss Robinson’s wedding had not been canceled, at least not the ceremony part—that was going to start very soon, any minute now, and Patty-Lou hadn’t moved. She was sitting still, waiting for me after she peed, like I held all the answers. Like I could really hurt her if she did the wrong thing. Like I was in charge or